Have you ever stood in a spot where you just wanted to scream out every word you wanted to say, but instead you close your mouth, walk away and scream in private until the tears run dry? It hurts, every single day it hurts, my heart, my soul and my life.
LIFE: Live It Fully Everyday. So now what, it still hurts.
I live life fully every day, I am grateful for all I have, I stop to smell those damn flowers and I know millions have it worse than me.
I cried about it, I wrote about it and I talked with a medical professional behind a closed door about it. Know why it hurts, because I am human.
Remember that time you broke your leg? I remember the time I was forcibly raped.
Remember the time you went over the handlebars of your huffy bike? I remember having my throat squeezed until I promised to keep a secret.
Remember the most memorable time of your life, now forget about it, stop talking about it and stop dwelling about it. Sounds dumb huh?
Being told to forget about a memorable time in your life, whether it is a death of a loved one, a wedding of a lifetime, an awesome sweet sixteen party or a childhood full of trauma, we don’t forget.
There are no twelve step programs, no medication and definitely no love song could ever erase good or bad memories.
I’ve come to learn we are told to move on, forgive, forget and all the bullshit which comes from having memories people don’t want to hear about, talk about or know about, because this world can be a cruel society.
To make victims live as victims and have the abusers live as survivors.
To judge a person for being poor and ridicule them for being rich.
To make family secrets more valuable than a family member.
To give evil and cruel actions an excuse and to make mental health an expensive call for help.
I am so tired of being quiet because society doesn’t want to hear the reality of life. All the moving on, forgiving and forgetting gave to us was a bunch of broken adults.
Accountability, Acknowledgement is my new Forgive and Forget
Gosh I have so much on my plate, my neck hurts and throbs with sharp pains every day. My vertigo is like walking in circles while sitting down. My head pounds, screams in aches, cracks and sharp bolts. What weighs the most on my heart, body and soul is the horror of my childhood. A horrifying reality in which society and family kept me silenced in.
I did all society said to do, I moved on, stopped dwelling, forgave, forgot and so on. All it did was leave me broken, a grown-up abused child, a grown up with experience in childhood trauma and family secrets.
It hurts and that is the reality of it. I am human and to disregard the horror I endured as something I should move on, forgive, forget and get over… is why it took me over thirty years to make it to my local police department. Because that’s what everyone expects us abused children to do, move on. Isn’t it time society gets a taste of its own reality?
Why should we be the ones to move on, stop dwelling, forgive or forget? We are not the abuser and we are not the ones who turned away or looked away on an abused child. We were the abused child and just because we grew up, survived it and went on to live life, it doesn’t make it forgivable, forgettable or something that should be lived in silence.
Survivors don’t belong in silence and our stories will help a reality that is drowning behind the mask of society.
My abuser was allowed to continue with his monstrous ways because no one older than me stood up, spoke up or protected me from a man who wore his mask well. A mask of secrets that remains buried inside the cellar wall of my childhood home. Detectives made numerous attempts after finding the hole in the cellar wall buried behind stacks of boards and wood. But due to falling rocks and a frail foundation, getting fully inside the tunnel-like hole has proved to be difficult.
I hope no abused child ever has to grow up in silence again, because that is the cruelest thing you could do to someone you claim to love.
I know this to be true, because I am a broken grown-up abused child. I never grew up to forget the childhood I spent my whole life hoping I’d forget and now I await for the day when proper authorities unearth all my birth mother allowed my abuser to bury inside that cellar wall back in 1981 and 1982.
No matter how broken you are, all your pieces are worth being heard.
Stand up, Speak up and Shatter The Silence on Childhood Trauma and Family Secrets
Thank you for reading me.
Your friend, Catherine Mellen ♡
Books By Catherine Mellen 